Scientists say being fat can be bad for the bedroom, especially if you're a woman.

In a new study, European researchers found obese women had more trouble finding a sexual partner than their normal-weight counterparts, though the same wasn't true for obese men, and were four times as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy. Fat men also reported a higher rate of erectile dysfunction.

Experts interviewed more than 12,000 French men and women aged 18 to 69 about their sexual experiences and analyzed the results based on their Body Mass Index.

Obese women were 30 percent less likely than normal-weight women to have had a sexual partner in the last year. In comparison, there was little difference among obese men and normal-weight men as to whether they found a sexual partner.

The results were published online Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ. The study was paid for by several French government agencies.

People with a BMI of 18-24 are considered to have a healthy weight. Those with a BMI of 25 or above are considered overweight and people with a BMI of 30 or more are classified as obese.

Previous studies have found similar trends, but researchers were surprised by the discrepancy they found between the genders as to how excess weight affects peoples' sex lives.

''Maybe women are more tolerant of tubby husbands than men are of tubby wives,'' said Kaye Wellings, a professor of sexual and reproductive health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of the BMJ study authors.

Experts said the problems faced by obese people were probably due to a combination of physical problems linked to obesity as well as other issues, like low self-esteem and social prejudices.

Obese people are at higher risk anyway for diabetes, depression and urinary stress incontinence, all of which can hinder sex. If people are extremely heavy, they might also have muscular or skeletal problems that make sex challenging.

The researchers found that obese women were less likely to ask for birth control services, and thus, four times more likely to accidentally get pregnant. Pregnant fat women and their babies also faced a higher risk of complications and death than normal-weight women.

Dr. Sandy Goldbeck-Wood, a specialist in psychosexual medicine at a London sexual health clinic, said physicians must talk to obese women about birth control.

''Doctors need to get over their own embarrassment and ask the difficult questions,'' she said. Goldbeck-Wood was not linked to the study but wrote an accompanying editorial in the BMJ.

Wellings and colleagues found obese men and women with a partner were no different from normal-weight people in terms of how often they had sex.

They also found that women tended to have partners with a similar body shape. Nearly 70 percent of fat women reported having a partner who was also heavy, while only about 40 percent of fat men had a similarly proportioned partner.

Some experts said the growing obesity epidemic in the West would worsen sexual dysfunction problems.

''This is not a heart attack or a stroke...but it's an important quality of life factor and a public health problem,'' said Dr. Andrew McCullough, an associate professor of clinical urology at New York University School of Medicine and director of male sexual health at NYU's Langone Medical Center.

He said the study's findings should provide another reason for people to trim their waistlines.

''It seems like a no-brainer,'' he said. ''If you lose weight, you will feel more attractive and that could improve your sex life.''

The survival-minded Connecticut man who tried to amputate his own arm after it became trapped in a furnace may have lost a limb, but he saved his life.

With an injury like Jonathan Metz's, harmful bacteria multiply quickly and invade normal tissue, explains Dr. Joseph Solomkin, professor of surgery at the University of Cincinnati. “You get a systemic infection, and the toxins can kill the patient pretty quickly,” he said.

With open wounds, intensive swelling and lack of blood flow to the arm, the chances of Metz making it out of his house alive were very slim. He had a perfect storm of symptoms, and time was running out as he decided on self-amputation.

“When the blood flow is cut off to the tissues, the arm is basically dead after six hours,” said Dr. Jason Ganz, plastic surgeon and hand surgeon at Stony Brook University Medical Center. “And this man was trapped for 18 hours in this situation. With the swelling further increasing the size of the arm in that narrow confined space, there would have been no blood flow.”

Metz sustained simultaneous multiple traumas to his arm after it got ensnared in his furnace's vents as he tried to retrieve a fallen vacuum cleaner piece. When he eventually began to smell his own flesh rotting, he knew he had to go to extreme measures, he told CNN.

"It took me about six hours to psych myself up to the point where I thought I was capable of actually doing what I thought needed to be done," Metz told CNN.

If Metz’s injury had occurred in a cold climate, the outcome might have been very different. The prompt reattachment of an amputated limb that has been preserved on ice can be successful.

But in Metz’s case, the area where he was trapped wasn’t cold enough to preserve the arm, and it was most likely dirty, as most boiler rooms are. Thus the lacerations on his arm, coupled with the poor conditions, established a high potential for infection.

And the swelling in a vulnerable area of the arm increased the possibility for disastrous consequences.

If he’d trapped a hand, it might have been a different story. “The hand has more bone and tendon and less muscle so you have a little more time, maybe eight hours, before the tissue dies,” Ganz said. “But the area of the arm above the elbow that is closer to the shoulder has a lot of muscle, and thus a higher demand for blood and nutrients.”

Metz’s decision to amputate was a wise one, according to Dr. Steven Herman, chief of thoracic surgery at Long Island College Hospital. And the fact that he was unable to complete the amputation was not life-threatening.

“He did enough to isolate the toxins and to protect himself from the systemic effects of a gangrenous limb,” Herman said. “It’s my understanding that he could not complete the amputation because he had gotten close to the nerves and it became too painful. But he was able to prevent a systemic blood infection, and to avoid the poisons that are liberated when parts of the body start to die.”

A Long Island woman's big toe will adapt to function as a thumb after doctors performed a rare transplant operation to replace the vital missing digit.

Shannon Elliott, 25, lost the thumb and two fingers from her left hand in November when a firework exploded in her palm. Elliott happened to be walking by when someone in a passing car tossed the explosive out a window.

It blew up when she bent to see what had landed and tore apart her hand, reports WABC.

"I was devastated. ... My fingers exploded into pieces," she said.

Stony Brook University doctors suggested the toe amputation to restore mobility to Elliott's hand, and performed an 11-hour surgery after Elliott agreed to go forward.

"To me it was a no brainer. I'd rather lose a toe and gain a whole hand," said the mother of two.

Losing a toe has little effect on a human's ability to walk or run, but losing a thumb nearly incapacitates hand functionality.

Doctors said Elliott will regain full use of her hand in six to nine months.

"She'll be able to pinch and grasp with her hand, she'll be able to hold things and pick up her children," said plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Ganz.

The toe will even adjust in size to better fit Elliott's hand.

"In 1 to 3 years actually, [it will] atrophy," Ganz told WPIX. "It should waste away to where it gets the size of her thumb."

It's no secret that childhood obesity is a major issue in the United States. First Lady Michelle Obama has even devoted part of her agenda to fighting it. At the core of the problem is the fact that less than one third of all children ages 6 to 17 get regular vigorous exercise, defined as at least 20 minutes of physical activity that makes them sweat and breathe hard, according to a new joint report from the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. That's in stark contrast to what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended in its recently released Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans: at least 60 minutes of moderate or vigorous exercise daily.Click here to find out more!

So what should parents do to get their kids moving more often? First, don't assume your child gets sufficient exercise in school through physical education classes, experts say. Most, but not all states require P.E., according to the new report. That means parents should incorporate physical activity into family time at home. Here are 5 tips to get started:

Encourage a little bit at a time. Minutes spent playing kickball with friends during recess count toward the hourlong daily goal, as does climbing trees in the backyard after school. "It doesn't have to be all at once," says Nancy Brown, CEO of the AHA. "Kids should be doing things appropriate for their age, so that [exercise] becomes a behavior and a natural part of what they do."

[Read: 4 Reasons More Recess Helps Kids Do Better in School.]

Advocate for well-maintained, safe sidewalks and bike paths in your neighborhood, and volunteer to supervise the use of school facilities after hours. Children are more likely to want to play outside—and you'll feel more comfortable with them doing it—if it's safe, so attend neighborhood association or city council meetings to request proper upkeep of nearby sidewalks and paths. Also, consider gyms and tracks at local schools as options for physical activity after hours and on weekends. Often, schools are willing to make gyms and equipment available on the weekends but simply need parents to volunteer to supervise, Brown says.

[Read: 10 Reasons Play Can Make You Healthy, Happy, and More Productive.]

Practice what you preach. "We think that parents and other adult role models need to set an example by being active themselves," Brown says. And it's not hard to find activities the whole family can do together, such as a daily walk or bike ride in the neighborhood. Other simple but fun options: hide-and-seek, jump rope, tag, or a game of basketball in the driveway. Mowing the lawn, raking leaves, and shoveling snow count, too.

[Read: Smart Fitness for Grown-Ups: A 10-Week Workout Routine.]

Don't underestimate the value of some video games. The AHA and Nintendo recently teamed up to promote the use of the Wii Fit to help Americans meet recommended physical activity guidelines. The goal of the partnership is to teach people how so-called "active-play" video games encourage regular exercise. If you're having a tough time getting your child to play outside, consider buying a video game that requires the child to get moving, Brown suggests.

[Read: 7 Tips From Uncle Sam's New Fitness Guidelines.]

Don't let other activities or physical disabilities limit your child. Thirty-two states allow students to waive P.E. because of health issues, physical disabilities, religious beliefs, early graduation, or participation in other activities, such as cheerleading or marching band. But those kids—even those with physical disabilities or health problems—still need to get an hour or more of exercise per day, says Charlene Burgeson, executive director of the NASPE. "Not being physically active isn't the way to go. If students have health issues or disabilities, there may be a way to modify the [physical] activity" to accommodate them, she says. "By not giving them that activity, we're really doing them an injustice." Solving this problem may mean approaching the school or gym teacher to ask how the class can be modified to accommodate your child.

African-American men are twice as likely to die from prostate cancer as white men. And Caribbean-born men in Brooklyn are three times as likely to die from the disease as U.S.-born men.

That's why PSA testing is a hot-button issue at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center - and why the hospital is a major participant in the Daily News' free PSA testing campaign. The East Flatbush, Brooklyn, hospital sits smack in the middle of Brooklyn's prostate cancer epicenter.

Starting Monday, Kingsbrook will offer free PSA tests together with seven other hospitals and a nonprofit outfit during a week-long campaign The News sponsors to battle prostate cancer.

This is the start of the second decade of the annual campaign.

"Take advantage of the test," said Dr. Jacob Sharaby, Kingsbrook's director of urology. "It's free, and it can help save your life." The list of test locations appears in today's paper and online at NYDailyNews.com.

The PSA test checks the level of prostate-specific antigen, a protein, in blood. An elevated level is a possible early indicator of prostate cancer. The central Brooklyn neighborhoods that constitute the hospital's primary care area are home to big African- and Caribbean-American communities. The area has the highest incidence of prostate cancer in the borough.

The hospital tested 1,000 men last year, a big jump from 800 during 2008's testing week. Kingsbrook spokeswoman Enid Dillard said the hospital is working with local leaders to test even more men this year. Convincing their listeners can be a tough task.

"They think if they have no urinary problems, they don't have prostate cancer," Sharaby said. "They are wrong."

Some don't get tested because they're squeamish.

"I am scared of needles," confessed Geoffrey Davis, who heads the James E. Davis Stop Violence Foundation, which is named after his brother, a city councilman who was slain in 2003.

As a member of the Prostate Cancer Committee, Davis, 46, has spent months urging other guys to go for the test: "The first thing they say to me is, 'Are you gonna take it?'" he said.He already has.

Drawing blood from the crook of his elbow took all of 30 seconds.

"One vial is all it takes," said patient care technician Marcia Waldron, who did the job.

The many names, affectionate and derogatory, we use in reference to female buttocks suggest the range of ambivalent associations they elicit. “Booty” holds the promise of illicit pleasures. “Fanny” desexualizes the female behind, turning it into a sweet but inconsequential body part. The command to “get off your fanny” is less hostile than “get off your ass.” A “tush” is small and tight, a “rump” is round and fleshy, a “can” is fat and lazy. As Sander Gilman points out, the “buttocks are an ever-shifting symbolic site in the body…. Never do they represent themselves.” Female buttocks function as metaphors for traits that a society values or rejects. Their meanings vary between cultures and among ethnic groups; while a bounteous butt may bring out disgust or disdain in some social circles, it evokes a range of positive associations in others.

In mainstream U.S. culture, “bubble butts” have typically been associated with “lowly” subject positions or “vulgar” sexuality. Calling too much attention to one’s behind is considered uncouth in polite society, a nasty reminder of forbidden or distasteful acts. A big butt is associated with “unnatural” sex, excrement, or the excess and physicality identified with “darker” races. This body metaphor helps us constitute social identities and subject positions. Like most females growing up in America, I learned early on that bodily attributes such as butt size, hair texture, skin color, and body shape could convey a woman’s status and desirability. During my teens, achieving the “all American girl” look that graced the covers of fashion magazines meant dieting the butt into submission. A woman’s failure to reign in an unruly butt connoted her lack of discipline and self-control, and by association, her inferior moral character. It also marked her place in the social order: “high class” women did not carry excess baggage in the trunk. A skinny ass identified you with the elegant and never too rich, never too thin social elite, big butts with the mammies and maids.

But growing up in Miami, where Latinos comprise a majority, meant that I also had to negotiate another repertoire of butt metaphors and associations. While my American girlfriends dreamed of acquiring bigger breasts, the Cuban women in my family stressed the value of a bounteous derrière. Thus in my Little Havana neighborhood, a generously endowed backside earned appreciative glances or wolf-whistles. I knew that the size and shape of my butt identified the degree of my cultural assimilation. Thus buttocks registered a cultural divide: flat butts signaled conformity to American beauty standards, voluptuous hips expressed ethnic pride. To my mom, my refusal to put more meat on my bones seemed a deliberate form of rebellion, another sign of my increasing distance from her native culture. Straightening my hair and speaking without an accent helped downplay my ethnicity, but nothing screamed “Latinness” like an unabashedly big ass. After all, my mother and her friends delighted in their fulsome booty. A skinny ass provoked pitying looks from the matronly Cubanas, for whom it portended sterile, passionless marriages and unfaithful husbands. But to their more assimilated daughters, big culos were associated with “cubanazas”—those too loud, too fat, “too Cuban” women who were the butt of our jokes. An older generation of Cuban women considered abundant buns an asset, but to those of us who came of age with Twiggy images, a fat ass was a shameful reminder of our ethnic difference.

J. Lo Curves

In recent years, however, Americans have been enjoying a butt fling. Voluptuous female buttocks have become a valuable commodity, exploited in advertising campaigns, music videos, and specialty men’s magazines. This butt appeal has produced a profitable commercial market for “bootyful” women. What sparked mainstream culture’s lusty fondness for women with big butts? Angharad Valdivia credits the famous J. Lo butt, arguing that Lopez single handedly ushered in a butt focus within contemporary U.S. culture, intervening “into codes of beauty and femininity which until quite recently…relied exclusively on that nearly butt-less look….” One London-based magazine reported that Lopez’s rounded posterior made “curvy bottoms trendy” and created “a demand for silicone buttock implants” (Daily Mail 2003). In an article in Vanity Fair, Ned Zeman claims that Lopez “created a phenomenon in which a pair of buttocks became, in and of themselves, a cultural icon. Entire news articles would focus on The Lopez Ass, as if it were a separate life-form.”

What are we to make of this apparent notice of what plastic surgeons call the “gluteal aesthetic”? Commenting on the popularity of Jennifer’s butt, Frances Negron Muntaner contends that it offers “a way of speaking about Africa in(side) America.” In Muntaner’s reading, a big butt is an “invitation to pleasures construed as illicit by puritan ideologies, heternormativity, and the medical establishment through the three deadly vectors of miscegenation, sodomy, and a high-fat diet.” Further, Latinas are said to be embracing another standard of beauty and reclaiming, along with Lopez, “a curvaceous Latin body.” Several critics express this optimism, maintaining along with Mary Beltran that for Lopez “to declare beautiful and unashamedly display her well-endowed posterior . . . could be viewed as nothing less than positive—a revolutionary act with respect to Anglo beauty ideals.” Frances Aparicio notes that the bodies of Jennifer Lopez and Selena (similarly marked by curvy bottoms) have become symbols of ethnic pride. Given J.Lo’s status as Hollywood’s most highly paid Latina actress, her abundant assets represent both figurative and literal “booty.” Thus while Lopez’s remark that she likes to accentuate her “curvaceous Latin body” may express ethnic pride, it also signals the commercial viability of a voluptuous tush.

Racialized Bodies and Sexual Stereotypes

Buttocks have long been a source of cultural capital in the West, serving as emblems of sexual, racial, or ethnic difference. As Gilman and others have noted, difference is that which threatens order and control, the polar opposite of our individual or group identity. Valdivia puts it this way: “We can go so far as noting that Jennifer is represented in terms of her butt, and that her butt represents ethnic difference.” It is therefore not surprising that all the gossip and craze inspired by the J.Lo butt reminded me of another infamous butt—that 19th century colonized rump belonging to Saartje Baartman, dubbed by her masters and impresarios, the “Hottentot Venus.” This young African woman’s steatopygia—large, protruding butt—served as a sign of all that perplexed, fascinated, and horrified Europeans in the early 1800s about their darker others. Displayed throughout Europe, Saartje’s sign value as alien body persisted even after her death at twenty-five. Doctors dissected and preserved her genitals in glass jars, her large buttocks displayed for curious spectators eager to see bodily evidence of the African woman’s propensity to excess, deviant sexuality.

We should not underestimate the symbolic value of buttocks. Butt metaphors helped European cultures categorize and describe their others, ascribing bodily differences certain moral and intellectual attributes. Gilman argues that, “Beginning with the expansion of European colonial exploration, describing the forms and size of the buttocks became a means of describing and classifying the races. The more prominent the more primitive…” (Making the Body Beautiful). British culture, in particular, identified the buttocks with primitive or debased sexuality (Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex). Non-Western women were associated with the “lower regions” of the body and characterized in terms of their abundant backside. Similarly, in American culture, the U.S.-Mexico border marked a figurative divide between Northern mind and Southern body, rationality and sensuality, domestic and foreign. This bodily trope culled associations between the lower body and the inferior, more primitive “under” developed “torrid zones” south of the border; it often served to rationalize U.S. military interventions or corporate exploitation of Latin American labor and resources.

Brazillian Butt Lifts and the Big Booty Look

But in today’s transnational economy, the buttocks have become a precious commodity. Avital Levy’s documentary film, Bootyful World, which explores social attitudes toward female butts, includes a brief interview with Dr. Anthony Griffin, a famous plastic surgeon who claims that requests for his “Brazilian Butt Lift” surgery have surpassed all other surgeries in popularity, despite his $15,000-plus fee. Marketed as a sign of authenticity (of “real women”), big butts also help sell a range of products. Literally expanding their target demographic, Dove’s “real beauty” advertising campaign featured full-bodied women in their underwear, prominent hips and thighs in proud display. Nike’s “Just do it” campaign included a “Big Butts” promotion; full-page ads featured a protruding female butt in profile. Big-butted models have even been gracing the pages of fashion magazines that once catered exclusively to Kate Moss wannabes. As a result, women without a sufficiently endowed behind are getting implants or buying butt reshaping cushions on ebay. Of course, hip-hop culture has consistently celebrated the physicality of a big butt, and many a male rapper has sung the praises of bountiful booty. As Tara Lockhart points out, rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot has earned a hefty profit with his 1992 song, “Baby Got Back” (which was re-released on the 2000 Charlie’s Angels soundtrack). Sir Mix-A-Lot’s lyrics situate the fondness for a big butt “squarely within portions of the black community.”

In this context, as in my Little Havana neighborhood, a woman with a generous posterior signals an invitation to sexual pleasure. Several specialty men’s magazines have sprung up to feed this increasing market demand for models with ample booty. Unlike Playboy or Maxim that cater to “breast men,” magazines like King, Sweets, and Smooth appeal to men who covet women with voluptuous derrieres. They sell “authenticity” as well, turning “booty love” into a sign of ethnic masculinity. “Urban men, we like butts, we like hips. It’s a black and Hispanic thing,” says Antoine Clark, publisher of Sweets. Big booty isn’t just profitable these days for magazine publishers, ad execs, retailers, and rap artists. Some women’s careers now ride, literally, on their butts. African American model Buffie the Body owes her fame and fortune to her huge butt. As a highly paid model in men’s magazines, Buffie has found her calling in life by embodying the fantasies of butt lovers everywhere. “People normally see the light-skinned, small girls…in magazines, and maybe they were just tired of that and wanted to see something different, something real,” she told Ben Westhoff in an interview. “Even white guys are coming out of the closet, admitting their fetish for big butts! They were just always shy about it, sort of scared, before I hit it big. But now there are people from Switzerland, the U.K., Ireland, and Canada who order calendars from me.” Buffie concludes that if it weren’t for her big butt she “wouldn’t have made all this money.”

Body Politics of Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton

Perhaps, as Erin Aubry Kaplan wrote recently in Salon magazine, “Lord knows, it’s time the butt got some respect.” Noting that a protruding butt has been “both vilified and fetishized as the most singular of all black female features, more unsettling than dark skin and full lips,” Kaplan goes on to celebrate the emergence of Michelle Obama’s “solid, round, black, class-A boo-ta” on the nation’s political stage. With the election of Barack Obama, Kaplan argues, America finally has a First Lady with an unabashedly bounteous behind: “As America fretted about Obama’s exoticism and he sought to calm the waters with speeches about unity and common experience…. Here was one clear signifier of blackness that couldn’t be tamed, muted or otherwise made invisible.” Kaplan rightly reminds us that, “Black women are not the only ones with protruding behinds…. How many gluteally endowed nonblack women have been derided for having a black ass? Well, Hillary, for one.”

It may well be that America’s butt fling signals a growing acceptance of difference—a desire to broaden the repertoire of acceptable body types and beauty myths. If this celebration of fulsome booty helps women move beyond the self-hatred and anxiety attached to body fat or encourages ethnic pride in women whose bodies have historically been pathologized and denigrated—then power to the butt, indeed. But then again, in a consumer society, fashion trends are short-lived and the demand for novelty fuels profit. Will the buttocks be relegated to the margins of culture once more, disavowed and disowned by a fickle mainstream culture? Either way, I’ll still be dreaming of a time when (to loosely paraphrase Martin Luther King), women will be judged by the content of their character and not the size of their butts. Now that would be truly bootyful.

Daily News graphic designer Jeffrey Rosenkrantz, at home in Park Slope with wife Lori, is being treated for prostate cancer, which was detected in the early stages thanks to a PSA test.

A PSA test saved my life. I had one only because I ran into my doctor on the street.

It was a Sunday in late April. I was out walking with my wife, Lori, on Ninth St. in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

My internist, Dr. Lalit Patel, was out in front of his office. He works seven days a week. His philosophy is his patients get sick all the time.

My bronchitis was bothering me - it hits me once or twice a year. I needed a blood test to get cough medicine.

Lori would always bother me to take a blood test to check for diabetes, too, because it runs in my family. It was a perfect opportunity for her to say, "Dear, are you going to take a blood test?"

The doctor wanted me to do the testing right then, but we'd just been out to eat. He said, "Come in tomorrow and don't eat." He included a PSA test in the blood work.

I'm a graphic designer at the Daily News, and I'm 51. I've taken the annual PSA test The News offers at least a half-dozen times. Last year, though, I was really busy at work and missed it.

In the past, my PSA number was around 2, nothing to worry about. This time, my number was 4.75 - catching me off guard.

No one in my family has had cancer.

The doctor talked about having a biopsy done, but said, "Let's wait another month. We'll take your blood again; we'll see what the number is."

Lori and I were going to North Carolina to see my niece for a week. While I was away, I cut down the sugar in my diet. After I came back, I wanted to check my blood-sugar level. So I had a blood test, with a PSA included.

In two weeks, my PSA had gone up a half point. It was over 5. The doctor sent me right away to a urologist, Dr. Jude Barbera.

The urologist found an indentation on my prostate and suggested a biopsy, right away.

It took a while to get the results. I told Lori, "Maybe it's fine, because you'd think if it was cancer, he'd call you and say, 'I want to see you right away.'"

For my next appointment, Lori took the day off from work and went with me. It was a good thing she did: The biopsy showed cancer cells.

As the doctor was explaining everything, Lori backtracked, "You're saying he has cancer?"

"Yes," the doctor replied. "He has cancer."

That's when it hit both of us - that I've got cancer.

On the good side, he explained that I had caught it early. It can be treated. I have a 95% chance of surviving.

He's a surgeon, but he said, "If it was me, I'd do the radiation. It has the least amount of side effects."

It's called external beam radiation therapy. High-speed X-rays come from five different directions to target the cancer cells.

I'm doing it five days a week for nine weeks.

When I went to meet with my radiation oncologist, Dr. Joshua Halpern, he told me that if I'd waited any longer to have the biopsy, I would have been dead within five years.

THE DAY I met my radiation therapist, Michael Plantamura, I told him, "Mike, you're going to be my new best friend. You're going to save my life."

Mike laughed. But it's true.

After I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, I gave away my cigars and humidor. I enjoyed my cigars, but I wasn't going to trade one cancer for another.

I've been telling my friends at work my story.

I tell every one of them: "You take the test. It's free, it's here and it's just a blood test. Chances are, you're perfectly healthy. But I thought I was perfectly healthy."

Eat your heart out. Teenage boys routinely pack in 2,000 calories at lunch when given the chance, without any fat-producing effects, according to a study.

Given the chance, 14- to 17-year old guys eat more than girls their age and turn those calories into height and muscle mass.

Researchers from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development studied 204 kids between the ages of 8 and 17, according to Reuters. The kids were told to eat as much as they would normally. The typical noontime pig-out for the boys weighed in at close to 2,000 calories in late puberty - a fact that won’t surprise parents of boys who routinely eat them out of house and home.

The eating pattern makes perfect sense since boys have a later growth spurt than girls, according to researcher Dr. Jack A. Yanovski.

“There’s a lot of folk wisdom that says boys can eat prodigious amounts, but we haven’t had much data,” he told Reuters. Yanovski’s study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In the study, girls didn’t prove to be quite as ravenous. They demonstrated the largest appetites between the ages of 10 and 13, averaging nearly 1,300 calories at lunch. The figure increased just slightly among older teenage girls, which was consistent with their development.

Unlike guys, girls have their biggest growth spurt in early to mid-puberty. After that, as women know all to well, 2,000-calorie feasts no longer morph into height or muscle mass.

The curly bouncy hairs must be the favorite style of most of the girls along the world but getting the full voguish look is not so easy.

Curling the hairs perfectly is an art which most of the girls feels quite difficult but the reality is that it is not so.

If you perform the procedure of curling with full attention and by knowing the actual procedure you can get the snazzy professional look for your hairs and thus can easily capture the eyes of other in any party.

In this some beauty care and beauty care tips have been stated that can help you in the procedure of curling your hairs.

The curls look really adorable on the hairs with multiple layers so if you want to get some good curls for your hairs then you should go for the layered cutting on your hairs first.

Before starting these curling activities make it sure that your hairs are free from all tangles and snags. Take some time to comb your hairs so well that no such snag or tangle remains in the hairs because if the snags are still in the hairs then they can’t get the proper look even after perfect curling.

Curl on a small sections of hairs and it would be better to divide all the hairs into different small section. If you have started from right side of head then after completely curling that side, move on to the next one.

Don’t touch the freshly curled hairs because at that time they are hot and your touching can affect the shape that is supposed to be obtained or the one which you are requiring.

If you are planning to get curls over the entire head then going for hot rollers is the best choice that you can apply yourself or from some hair stylish.

After curling the hairs apply a hair spray that will make the curls stay for a longer period of time.

If you want to make a curl bit loose then apply a small amount of BioSilk to soft shiny finishing.

These were some of the tips that can help you in getting a perfect curly look for your hairs, if you want to get the natural curls that most of women have, then you can go for perms instead of light curling.

In recent years, the male foreskin—a double-folded tube of skin and mucous membrane that covers the head of the penis—has taken center stage in the battle against HIV. The foreskin is rich in Langerhans cells, immune cells that are particularly easy for the virus to access. Following infection, these cells not only serve as reservoirs for replicating the virus, but also transport it to nearby lymph nodes where HIV spreads to other immune cells. Studies have shown that removal of the foreskin can reduce a man’s risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection by 50 to 65 percent, findings that prompted large-scale circumcision campaigns in countries with high infection rates, such as sub-Saharan Africa, where heterosexual sex is primarily responsible for the HIV epidemic. Studies had also suggested that circumcision could reduce the rate of male-to-female transmission of the virus, but that turns out not to be the case.

A Ugandan study, led by Dr. Maria J. Wawer of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, was stopped early after it became apparent that male circumcision offered no protection to female partners. The study involved 922 uncircumcised, HIV-infected men between 15 and 49 years of age who were randomly chosen to either be circumcised or remain uncircumcised. The HIV-free female partners of the male participants were also enrolled in the study, 90 in the circumcised group and 70 in the uncircumcised group, and their HIV status was evaluated after 6, 12 and 24 months. All participants were intensively schooled in HIV prevention and provided free condoms.

After two years, 18 percent of the women in the circumcised group had become infected with HIV, compared with 12 percent in the uncircumcised group. Cumulative probability of HIV infection at 24 months was 22 percent among women in the circumcised group and 13 percent among those in the uncircumcised group. The majority of the infections in the circumcised group occurred within the six months following the procedure. The researchers said the infections were caused because some of the men had intercourse before their circumcision wounds had healed, exposing their female partners to HIV-infected blood in the vagina.

The researchers said though they were disappointed with the outcome of the study, circumcision campaigns are still valid. “The efficacy of male circumcision for prevention of HIV in uninfected men is clear, and reductions in male acquisition of HIV attributable to circumcision are likely to reduce women’s exposure to HIV-infected men. Male circumcision programs are thus likely to confer an overall benefit to women,” the researchers concluded.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr Jared M. Baeton, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues stressed the importance of circumcision programs for men at risk of HIV, and argued for more effort being focused on people in relationships where one partner is HIV-infected and the other is not. “Prevention services for this population, including HIV testing for couples, facilitated disclosure of HIV seropositivity, and ongoing counseling services, should be a public health priority,” they write. “Such services should be incorporated into male circumcision programs, thereby providing further protection to HIV uninfected women.”

An estimated 33 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS, but the World Health Organization (WHO) says circumcision has the potential to dramatically reduce the toll of the virus, averting an estimated 5.7 million new infections and three million deaths over the next 20 years in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Both the study and the editorial appear in the July 18 issue of The Lancet.

Do you stand head and shoulders below the crowd? Better pay close attention to your health.

People of short stature have a 50 percent higher chance of having a heart problem or a fatal heart attack than tall people, according to a new study reported by the Associated Press.

But shorties shouldn't worry too much: a person's weight, smoking habits and blood pressure are still more important factors when it comes to calculating cardiovascular risk.

While researchers are uncertain why short people could be more at risk for heart problems, it could be that traditionally, those of small stature were undernourished and more susceptible to health problems in general.

A possible biological explanation could be a hormone imbalance that damages the heart. Since small people have smaller arteries, those blood vessels theoretically could get blocked faster with cholesterol or be more quickly hurt by blood pressure changes.

While earlier studies showed a possible link between height and cardiac problems such as angina and heart attacks, this is the first large scale review of such studies.

Finnish researchers examined 52 earlier papers that contained data on cardiac disorders and height in over 3 million people. They learned that the shortest people were one and one half times more likely to suffer or die from cardiac problems than the tallest people. Published online in the European Heart Journal, the study was funded by the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research and other groups.

Study lead author Tuula Paajanen of Tempere University Hospital in Finland does not think shorties should be too concerned about the research.

"Height is only one factor (among many) that may contribute to heart disease risk," she told the Associated Press. Instead, she urged people to focus on other ways of staying healthy, like exercising and not smoking.

"Those are easier to change than your height," she said.nydailynews.com

Federal regulators are mulling whether to restrict or even completely ban serving peanuts on commercial flights.

The snack attack would ease fears and reduce the potential harm to nearly 1.8 million Americans who suffer from peanut allergies, advocates say. But peanut farmers are crying foul, saying the ruling is overreaching.

"The peanut is such a great snack and such an American snack," Martin Kanan, CEO of the King Nut Companies, told the Associated Press. "What's next? Is it banning peanuts in ballparks?"

The U.S. Transportation Department announced last week that it was meeting with allergy sufferers, medical experts, the food industry and the public on whether to ban in-flight peanuts.

A spokesman for the department said it was responding to concerned travelers who either suffer from peanut allergies or have children that do.

"We're just asking for comment on whether we should do any of these three things," spokesman Bill Mosely told the AP. "We may not do any of them."

Want lots of kids? If you're a man, find yourself a neurotic mate. And if you're a woman, look for a gregarious guy. That’s because extroverted men and needy, anxious women are the most fertile coupling, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers looked at a population in Senegal for the study. That African nation is run a little differently from the U.S. - its residents practice polygamy and typically don’t believe in birth control.

But whether in Senegal or America, extroverted men tend to make more money and presumably have more sex. And more frequent sex leads to more babies.

The findings, says study author Prof. Virpi Lummaa of Sheffield University in the U.K., suggest “that the link between extroversion and number of children in men is driven by the effects of extroversion on the probability of belonging to the high social class.”

Other studies in “low fertility” nations such as the United States, where using contraception is commonplace, confirm the link. This leads Lummaa to theorize that these “effects might be universal across different societies.”

So why do neurotic women make more babies? They tend to have “attachment anxiety” and so are very motivated to have sex with their husbands, according to Lummaa. And among couples not practicing birth control, this means more babies.

Skeptics may wonder whether it's actually having the babies that makes a mom neurotic. Apparently not. The study authors concluded that being neurotic is likely responsible for a woman having many babies, rather than a consequence of having kids.

Weinfeld, who serves as chief of the foot and ankle service at Mount Sinai, is an orthopedic surgeon who treats injuries ranging from broken ankles to dislocations of the foot. Sprained ankles are the most common injury he treats.

WHO'S AT RISK

Every day, 25,000 Americans sprain an ankle. “Ankle sprain is one of the most common injuries out there,” says Weinfeld. “Pretty much everyone has one in their lifetime.” While the majority of these sprains will heal on their own in time, about 15% will cause recurrent problems.

The ankle is a complex hinge joint where the foot and leg meet. “It’s made up of the talus bone, better known as the ankle bone, as well as parts of the tibia and fibula,” says Weinfeld. “As the joint that allows us to propel weight forward, the ankle is only supposed to do up and down motions.”

Ankle sprains occur when the foot twists or rolls beyond its normal range of motion, causing the ligaments of the ankle to be stretched beyond their capacity.

Everyone who walks is at risk of an ankle sprain, but some groups of people are at higher risk. “ ‘Cutting’ sports like basketball or volleyball, where you’re moving from side to side, put extra stress on the ankle,” says Weinfeld. “So do change-of-direction sports like tennis and squash — a lot of that torque takes place in the foot.” Ankle injuries are also common in people who do in-line skating.

Doctors used to consider ankle sprains a problem of young people, but that has changed. “We’re seeing the older population staying active, so we’re seeing these injuries more in older patients than we did,” says Weinfeld. Being overweight and having high-arched feet or loose joints can also predispose you to sprains.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

Sprains are defined as tears in a ligament, and ligaments are made up of multiple fibers. “The more ligament fibers that are torn, the more severe the sprain,” says Weinfeld. Ankle sprains are most often an inversion injury. “The bottom of the foot turns in toward the center of the body, stretching the ligaments on the outside of the ankle,” says Weinfeld.

Patients often describe a sudden feeling that the ankle has given way, followed by swelling, pain and, in severe cases, the inability to bear weight on that leg. “Swelling or pain that doesn’t resolve within a day or two should be checked,” says Weinfeld.

Ankle sprains tend to follow a certain progression.

“Within one day, you see the classic black-and-blue bruising,” says Weinfeld. “Swelling will usually be centered over the outer aspect of the ankle.”

TRADITIONAL TREATMENT

For garden-variety ankle sprains, time is the best healer when accompanied by the classic measures: rest, ice, compression and elevation. For these everyday sprains, Weinfeld recommends using a compression wrap bandage, applying ice and taking an anti-inflammatory medication like ibuprofen or Aleve if you need it.

More serious sprains may require the ankle to be immobilized with a brace or a cast. “If it’s a severe case, I’ll put them in a brace but let them walk if it’s not too painful,” says Weinfeld.

Most patients keep their braces or casts for three to four weeks. “If they still have symptoms, we’ll send them into physical therapy to strengthen the muscles and teach the ankle to sense when they’re about to twist,” he adds.

The return to athletic activity depends on the activity and the severity of the injury. “They can get on a stationary bike or elliptical trainer in a few weeks, but it can be six weeks or more for cutting sports like basketball,” notes Weinfeld.

About 15% of the people who suffer an ankle sprain have chronic ankle problems as a result. “They feel like their ankle is going to twist, or it does keep twisting, or they have persistent pain,” says Weinfeld. Surgery can be an option for these patients.

“The surgery entails placing stitches in the ligaments to reinforce them and transferring a band of tissue in the area to reinforce it,” says Weinfeld.

The recovery period is usually about six weeks, with a return to weight-bearing in two weeks and return to the sport in three to four months.

RESEARCH BREAKTHROUGHS

The surgeries used to repair chronic ankle instability have improved dramatically. “Within the last couple of years, we’ve started using cadaver tissue to reconstruct the ligaments in a minimally invasive way,” says Weinfeld. That cuts down the healing time, as does another advance — platelet-rich plasma therapy that promotes healing of ligaments.

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR DOCTOR

A good place to start is, “What are my treatment options?” or “What can I do to get better as quickly as possible?”

For many weekend warriors, the burning question is, “How long do I have to stay out of my sport?” The length of time out depends on the severity of the injury and the nature of the sport. Many patients are shocked by how long the ankle takes to heal completely. “Acute pain usually lasts for a few days, but the swelling can last three to four months or longer,” says Weinfeld.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Be careful with your footwear. “High heels are a setup for these sprains,” says Dr. Weinfeld, “as are shoes that have worn out unevenly.” Runners should make sure to replace their shoes fairly often.

Smokers may want to consider where their cigarettes are coming from before they plunk down money for another pack. American-made butts have up to three times the level of cancer-causing nitrosamines as foreign brands, according to research.

A study by the federal Centers for Disease Control compared the levels of nitrosamines – a major carcinogen – that were ingested by smokers in the United States, U.K., Canada and Australia over a 24-hour period. Included in the study were participants who smoked the most popular brands in their particular country. The U.S. volunteers liked Marlboro, Newport and Camel.

“People smoking the U.S. brand cigarettes (we tested) received a level of this carcinogen in their mouth and lungs that was three times higher compared to smokers in Canada and Australia,” Dr. James Pirkle, deputy director for science at the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, told ABC News.

Still, smokers here shouldn’t assume that if they buy foreign brands, they’re getting a healthier product. The research only looked at nitrosamines but not the other two dozen carcinogenic toxins in cigarettes.

“People might think that by switching brands, they will improve their health outcomes,” Wake Forest University School of Medicine director of tobacco intervention programs Dr. John Spangler told ABC News. But it’s way too premature to know if this is true.

The study information may one day help decide on the formulation of American cigarettes, a practice that’s now regulated by the FDA, thanks to last year’s Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Both men were relatively young when they were sidelined by a traumatic brain injury. Yet actor Gary Coleman succumbed last week at the age of 42, and rocker Bret Michaels, 47, is back on the scene, fresh off his "Celebrity Apprentice" win and looking like a bandanna-clad poster child for robust good health.

How can a cerebral hemorrhage have such different consequences? It depends upon the type of hemorrhage, its size, what area of the brain is affected and the overall health of the victim, experts say.

Both an intracranial hemorrhage (which occurs inside the brain tissue) or a subarachnoid hemorrhage (which bleeds into the lining around the brain) have the potential to kill. Bleeds in certain areas of the brain (such as the ones that control heart rate and breathing) are much more likely to be fatal than, say, a hemorrhage into a region that controls speech or vision.

"It’s like real estate - location, location, location," says Dr. Toby Gropen, chairman of the department of neurology at Long Island College Hospital. "And the size of the hemorrhage makes a difference, too."

The brain stem, which is about the size of a thumb, is an unfortunate place to suffer a brain hemorrhage, says Dr. Jeffrey Frank, neurology professor and director of neurocritical stroke care at the University of Chicago. "A substantial stroke in the brain stem could be catastrophic, while people who suffer a stroke in the language area would face disability but it would not be as devastating," he explains.

Dr. Randolph Marshall, professor of neurology at Columbia University School of Medicine and chief of the stroke division at New York Presbyterian Hospital, says Coleman's multiple health problems most likely played a significant role in his outcome after the brain injury. "He had other sources of inflammation relating to his kidney disease," Marshall says. "This can make it much more difficult to recover."

Recurrent strokes tend to be more devastating than the first stroke, says Gropen, which is why it is so important for stroke victims to pay attention to symptoms and get treatment. And, Gropen adds, there are certain risk factors for hemorrhagic strokes that people can actually control. Smoking, high blood pressure, obesity and heavy alcohol usage all can be contributing factors, he says. Drug use, especially when it includes cocaine, also ups the risk of stroke.

"We know that the treatment of risk factors and their elimination can have a profound effect on eliminating the risk," Gropen says.

Ouch! A British teenager labored for nearly three weeks before she delivered a tiny preemie.

Thankfully, Daniel Barwell, who weighed just 1 pound and 3 ounces at birth, recently celebrated his first birthday at a robust 17 pounds, according to the Daily Mail.

His mom, Amy Buck, was three and one-half months away from her due date when she began what’s believed to be the slowest labor ever.

“Thinking back, I don’t know how it was possible for me to be in labor for the best part of 20 days and Daniel to survive despite being born so small,” she told the Daily Mail.

Buck was admitted to the hospital May 4, 2009, with contractions. She’d already experienced labor pains earlier in the pregnancy and thought she might be miscarrying. This time, she said, the contractions grew worse and she spent her time staying in bed or walking around. At the hospital, where doctors tried to stop the labor because the baby was so premature, Buck spent five days taking medications to delay labor and antibiotics for an infection.

When Daniel finally emerged into the world - feet first - his mom said, “Oh, my God, he’s kicking!”

Given just a 15% chance of survival by doctors, baby Daniel was treated for lung problems and had laser eye treatments. Last October, his mom, who lives with Daniel’s dad, 20-year-old car dealer Martin Barwell, took him home.

“He’s only different in that he’s smaller than other kids,” Buck said. “And he’s only got two teeth.”

A Manhattan trainer has come up with a road map for guilt-free gorging - marathon walks to and from the restaurant.

Melissa Delancey dreamed up the workout when she and her husband were craving calorie-laden ribs at Harlem's Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.

"We were like, 'We have to walk there,'" said Delancey, 30, who lives in the East Village.

They made the 16-mile round-trip trek - and knew they were onto something.

They started leading friends, clients and strangers on foodie forays.

The latest "marathon walk" went from Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Pies 'n' Thighs in Williamsburg, where the group pigged out on chicken and waffles and five kinds of pie.

Then they trudged into Manhattan and headed for Union Square, logging an impressive 19.1 miles during the all-day journey.

"When you first sit down, you're not that hungry after walking so much - but we definitely ate!" said Delancey, who works at Clay in Union Square.

"We had two guys who were chafing, and some had started limping a bit - but everyone did a really good job."

The pain was worth it, participants said.

"I really like pie," said Brian Gruber, 28, a computer programmer from Fresh Meadows, Queens, who jumped at the chance to be a glutton and feel good about it.

"I thought, 'That's the perfect excuse,'" he said, adding that the meal in the middle helped him refuel for the second half.

"I had a couple blisters on my feet and I was exhausted, but other than that I was fine."

The walks have been free, but Delancey is planning to do future hikes for charity, asking each walker to donate $1 per mile.

Her next destination is famed DiFara pizzeria in Midwood, Brooklyn.

She's also planning a walk to Astoria for Greek grub, and has her eye on two Williamsburg spots with belly-busting names - Fette Sau (that's German for fat pig) and the Southeast Asian-style Fatty Cue.

Because the average walker burns about 50-80 calories a mile, even a marathon hike may not completely erase a 2,000-calorie binge.

"It's a workout for sure, but I don't think we're equaling the calories that we're eating," she laughed. "It's fun, and it's good for metabolism."

The latest ridiculous (and health-endangering) drinking stunt to gain popularity among college students is called "vodka eyeballing," where buzz-seeking partiers tip back their heads and have a shot of vodka poured directly on the eye.

The trend is believed to have originated at Las Vegas nightclubs, as waitresses, hungry for tips, performed this cheap trick. Since building momentum in the U.S., vodka eyeballing has gained a foothold in the U.K. and Scotland, reports the Daily Mail’s Barbara Davies.

YouTube features more than 800 clips of vodka eyeballing. There’s even a Facebook page devoted to the craze — and it has over 100 fans.

Vodka eyeballers claim to experience an instant high and deeper inebriation. Their medical rationale: The alcohol passes easily through the mucous membrane and enters the bloodstream through veins at the back of the eye for a quicker buzz than drinking.

While doctors have dismissed this reasoning, they are deeply concerned about long-term damage, like permanent scarring and deteriorating vision.

"In the past, vodka has been used as a disinfectant," Prof. Robin Touquet, a consultant in emergency medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, U.K., told the Daily Mail. "At 40% proof, imagine what it can do to an area as sensitive as the eye? It is highly toxic."

But, immune to sensible thinking and urged by peers to compete, students act recklessly and with disregard to the consequences.

Melissa Fontaine, a former university student and prolific vodka eyeballer, is troubled by a constantly watering eye and worries about future side effects.

“I'm in constant pain because of what I did,” Fontaine told the Daily Mail. “I'm terrified that it will get worse. I wish I could turn the clock back and change things. But I can't.”